Indonesian parents sue as tainted drugs scandal highlights lack of safety standards
- More than two dozen Indonesian families are launching a class-action lawsuit after 19 children died from kidney failure after consuming tainted medicine
- The defendants in the case include two drug manufacturers, Indonesia’s ministries of health and finance, and the food and drug supervisory agency
When Tia Rizki’s son, Mohammad Naufal Rizki Mustofa, came down with a slight fever and cough last August, she assumed it was nothing serious.
Over the next few weeks Mustofa appeared to be on the mend, although her son’s fever still came and went so Rizki gave him more liquid paracetamol. About a month later, on September 2, Mustofa suddenly started screaming in pain. He hadn’t urinated since the night before and was clutching his stomach.
On September 9, he lost consciousness and was put on a ventilator. I never spoke to him or saw him conscious again
By the next day, Mustofa had still not urinated, so Rizki took him to the local hospital where an abdominal scan found that his kidneys were failing. On September 8, the hospital said he would need to undergo dialysis.
“On September 9, he lost consciousness and was put on a ventilator. I never spoke to him or saw him conscious again,” Rizki told This Week in Asia.
Mustofa died on September 26 following six dialysis treatments.
In October, Rizki learned through media reports of other children who died of kidney failure after consuming suspected tainted cough syrup and liquid paracetamol. She also found out that some parents were planning to launch a class-action lawsuit under the guidance of lawyer Awan Puryadi.